Daily News

Top House Republicans are warning that upcoming OSHA plans to overhaul its process safety management (PSM) program may overlap with EPA plans to revise its Risk Management Plan (RMP) accident prevention program, underscoring long-standing industry concerns that the two agencies' rules may result in competing requirements.

OSHA has formally launched an effort to codify its controversial 2015 policy memo that for the first time subjects small facilities that sell fertilizer to the agency's process safety management (PSM) facility accident prevention program, a move that would put the policy on a more solid legal footing.

The White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) has begun formal review of the Labor Department's (DOL) final guide for helping federal agencies determine whether contractors' OSH Act and other violations preclude them from awards, part of a plan that industry is calling an unlawful “blacklisting” rule that will face legal challenge.

According to OMB's website, White House officials began formal review of DOL's “Guidance: Fair Play and Safe Workplaces,” as well as a related Federal Acquisition Rule (FAR), May 4.

The Republican attorneys general of Louisiana and Texas are urging EPA to amend draft revisions to the agency's Risk Management Plan (RMP) facility accident prevention rule, arguing that some of the proposed new requirements, such as for independent audits and information sharing, are outside the scope of the Clean Air Act and fail to make facilities safer.

NIOSH is facing competing calls from EPA and the Defense Departement over its draft review and proposed limit to protect workers against exposure to the solvent 1-Bromopropane (1-BP), with EPA backing the analysis, and DOD criticizing the review and seeking further data.

OSHA appears poised to issue its controversial electronic recordkeeping and reporting rule, one of only two rules the agency is expected to issue before the end of the Obama administration, after the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) approved the measure April 29.

As lawmakers grapple with the final issues holding up an agreement on a bill overhauling the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), they appear unlikely to back recent calls from health advocates seeking to strengthen regulation of chemicals used in oil and gas drilling operations.

OSHA advisors are faulting the agency's draft guide for protecting whistleblowers from employer retaliation, saying the agency “omitted or severely diluted” advisors' recommendations, though agency officials during an April 26 meeting rejected calls for further discusion on the issue, saying they are focusing on written comments in preparing a final version.

New federal health and safety data showing an increase in the number of workplace injury and deaths is prompting new calls from labor and other advocates for policymakers to strengthen OSHA's policies and practices, including issuance of long-awaited standards, increased enforcement and inspection funds and stepped up focus on immigrant, temporary and older workers, as well as those in the public and oil & gas sectors.

OSHA advisors are crafting safety guidelines for the construction sector by clarifying and tailoring the agency's 2015 draft safety guidelines for all industry sectors, seeking a separate document that is unique and relevant to the construction industry's many small employers, often transient workforce, and multi-employer work sites.

A federal court has rejected efforts by an oil and gas construction company to dismiss Clean Water Act (CWA) charges brought by federal regulators as a result of an industrial accident on an offshore rig, underscoring Justice Department efforts to use pollution control laws to bolster workplace safety enforcement.

The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is declining to issue a novel limit to protect workers from exposure to nanosilver, citing insufficient data, though health advocates are urging the institute to strengthen its language on the issue, saying it could prompt regulatory agencies to require data that would eventually inform a future standard.

Bolstered by calls from top Democrats and a long-awaited congressional investigation, a broad coalition of labor unions is preparing a formal petition asking OSHA to set a comprehensive workplace violence prevention standard to protect healthcare workers.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) says that “ongoing and fragile negotiations” continue between House and Senate lawmakers on trying to craft a final compromise Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform bill that could advance in both chambers, adding that administration officials have been offering support in the long-running bid for a deal.

During an April 19 Senate Environment & Public Works Committee hearing, , Booker thanked EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy for the agency's support on TSCA negotiations. "These last few days, you guys have been extraordinary,” he said.

The National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) is urging Congress to block OSHA's silica rule until the agency has reconsidered the measure's impacts on small businesses, a call that at least one key Republican lawmaker signaled he is prepared to support.

House lawmakers and federal appellate judges are beginning to scrutinize OSHA's high-profile rule limiting silica exposures in workplaces, with a House panel slated to hear from the rule's critics and the judicial branch consolidating early challenges to the rule in a federal appellate court in Washington, DC.

An appeals court has scheduled oral argument for May 16 in the agricultural industry's lawsuit seeking to block OSHA's policy narrowing a “retail” exemption to the agency's process safety management (PSM) program, a change industry argues failed to follow proper rulemaking procedure, but that OSHA says is merely a new interpretation of an existing rule.

NIOSH and other federal agencies are taking comment on separate efforts to assess the risks of 1-Bromopropane (1-BP), a widely used chemical solvent, assessments that could open the door to new regulatory mandates to limit risks to workers and pregnant women that may be vulnerable to the chemical's adverse effects.

The chemical is an organic solvent used in a host of commercial and industrial settings, including in the adhesives, dry cleaning, vapor degreasing, and electronic and metal cleaning industries.

Top political and career officials in EPA's toxics office say changes during the last few years to the “existing” chemicals management program will ease the agency's ability to implement a pending Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform bill, but some observers question whether the agency is taking sufficient steps to prepare for the reform effort.

OSHA in a recent letter of interpretation (LOI) has clarified aspects of its policy for enforcing the agency's updated 2012 Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) after industry groups raised concerns about shipping existing stocks of covered chemicals that were already packaged and labeled to comply with the old rule before the new HCS took effect.